Violin attachment



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JACKSON GORI-IAM, OF BAIBDSTOIVN, GEORGIA.

VIOLIN ATTACHMENT.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 18,544, dated November 3, 1857.

To all lwhom it may concern:

Be itknown that I, JACKSON Gourmet, of Ba-irdstown, in the county of Oglethorpe and State of Georgia, have invented a new and useful Attachment to Violins; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, Clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification, in which- Figure l is a side view of a violin with my attachment. F ig. 2 is a front view of the same. F ig. 3 is a transverse section, in the plane indicated by the line a?, a3, of Fig. l.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the three figures.

This invention consists in an adjustable device fitted to the head of the violin in such a manner as to be capable of pressing the strings upon any portion of the fingerboard, to enable ordinary performers to eXecute music in any key, fingering only in those keys in which the great mass of performers play, viz. the keys of one, two, and three sharps.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A, is a fiat piece of wood or metal having attached to one end two hooks a, a, of met-al, to hook on to one of the tuning pins Z), ot the violin, and having grooves e, e, in its edges, to receive tongues f, f, on two sliding pieces of metal e, c, which carry the fulcrum (l, of a lever B, of wood or metal, one end of which is bent down toward the fingerboard of the violin and faced with a pad of leather or some other soft material, to press upon strings, and the other end has -a screw C, screwing through it so as to be capable of pressing upon the board A. By screwing the screw C, hard down upon the board A, while the said board is attached to one of the pins by its hooks a, a, the said board is pressed firmly against the head D of the violin, and the opposite end of the lever forced toward the fingerboard and made to press the strings closely against the latter, thus causing all the parts to be secured immovably; but by turning the screw back a little way to liberate the lever B, the sliding pieces c, o, with the said lever may be moved to bring the padded end of the lever to any part of the finger board; and then by turning the screw in the opposite direction, the lever is made to clamp the strings firmly against the finger-board and the whole apparatus is rmly secured. It is obvious that by this adjustment, the key may be varied at the pleasure of the performer. The lever B is slit some distance from its padded extremity into four ngers, one finger for each string, so that it presses on each string independently and thus insures each string being firmly pressed against the finger-board.

A strong spring or a wedge may be employed between the lever B, and the board A, as a substitute for the screw C.

That I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

The lever B, having its fulcrum (Z, in a support c, c, which is movable on a board or piece A, attached to the head of the violin, and having a screw C, or its equivalent, applied to it, the whole operating substantially as herein described.

JACKSON GORI-IAM.

I'Vitnesses O. A. MCLAUGHLIN, Josnrrr H. EDwARDsoN. 

